Paper ballots temporarily used at some Richland County precincts as voting opens

A couple of precincts in Richland County had trouble getting voting machines working Tuesday morning and temporarily shifted to paper ballots.

Alexandria Stephens, Richland County elections director, said all precincts have paper ballots in case of a problem with machines and voting went on without pause.

“Shandon Baptist had to vote paper ballots for a couple of hours,” she said.

By 9 a.m., all voting machines were online and voters no longer needed paper ballots, Stephens said.

In Columbia, voters are selecting a new mayor to replace Mayor Steve Benjamin, who is not running for re-election, and two Columbia City Council members. The four candidates for mayor are Moe Baddourah, Tameika Isaac Devine, Sam Johnson and Daniel Rickenmann.

A number of other municipalities throughout Richland and Lexington counties also are staging elections for mayoral and council seats.

Polls will be open until 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

To read more about the local elections and candidates, visit www.thestate.com/voter-guide.

This story will be update through the day.

This story was originally published November 2, 2021 at 9:52 AM.